


pathetic fallacy

by orestes



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Future Fic, M/M, Pining Derek, Rain, Sheriff Stilinski's Name is John
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-07
Updated: 2014-05-07
Packaged: 2018-01-23 23:00:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1582547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orestes/pseuds/orestes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s shitty timing. Derek has no pack, no one to call, no one to check up on him. So Derek does the only thing he can think of. He sits in the bathtub and lets the rain wash over him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	pathetic fallacy

**Author's Note:**

> i'm working on about three different fics that are about 3/4 of the way finished right now. i'm so bad at focusing on one project! anyway, i wrote something short because i wanted to have at least one thing finished. thanks to [becca](http://archiveofourown.org/users/justintrimblerlake) for reading this through for me :--) any remaining mistakes are entirely my own.

Derek isn’t quite self-centered enough to believe the elements are all conspiring against him, but sometimes he can’t help but feel like the weather in Beacon Hills only bothers to be cheerful so that it can mock him. 

He can remember the day he first met Kate; the sun shone like molten gold in the sky, and as he looked out across the cloudless horizon he thought that she would be his happily ever after. Maybe he should have guessed. It was all too perfect.

The morning after she burned his house down, the sun still shone just as brightly and the sky was just as cloudless while Derek sat beneath it, forcing back tears as he watched the county police department drag the ashen bodies of his family out of the skeletal remains of his childhood home.

It was sunny the day he found Laura’s body amongst the trees, and the day Lydia resurrected Peter from the grave, and the day he allowed Erica and Boyd to leave his pack, and the day he found out the truth about Jennifer.

Derek has since learned that you can’t trust the weather to reflect your emotions. The sun will still shine regardless of who you’ve lost, how much you cared about them, because life is not a Brontë novel and the rest of the universe doesn’t care.

“Maybe you should move to Forks,” Stiles says, because of course he’s noticed the way Derek glowers out of the window more aggressively than usual whenever the weather is particularly ‘nice.’ He probably thinks it’s hilarious. “It rains there more than in any other place in the United States of America.”

“I know,” Derek replies, because he’s not afraid to admit that he’s read the entire Twilight series. Werewolves are cool, but they’re severely underrepresented in ‘adult’ books, so while Stephenie Meyer isn’t exactly a literary genius, and doesn’t seem to understand werewolf lore at all, Derek will settle for what he can get. “I wouldn’t want to step on Cullen territory, though. I don’t want Edward to rip me to shreds.”

The corners of Stiles’s lips twitch up. “Edward’s a pansy. There’s no way he could take you,” he says and, in the quiet moments like this, Derek thinks maybe he can deal the weather in Beacon Hills after all.

\---

Around three months later the entirety of his pack leave Beacon Hills for college. They all promise to come back, that they’ll see him again soon, that he’s welcome to visit them any time he’d like to. Derek can hear their heartbeats, and he knows that they’re being sincere, but he still can’t convince himself that any of it is true.

Stiles is the very last one to go.

He stops by Derek’s loft before the big drive to Berkley, with all his bags already loaded into the back of the jeep. Before Derek can recite a single word of the goodbye speech he practiced in the mirror earlier, Stiles wraps him up in his arms and holds on tightly.

“Don’t you dare be a stranger,” he says. “I’m going to miss you, you know.”

Derek doesn’t know what to say to that so he doesn’t say anything, just breathes Stiles in and wishes he could keep the comforting scent of soap, sweat, red apples and cinnamon with him forever, just like this.

\---

The next morning Derek wakes up soaked to the bone.

He burrows down deeper into his sodden blankets and allows himself believe for a moment that the roof has caved in again, the same way it did back in the shitty apartment he shared with Laura in New York. But this is Beacon Hills, and Derek knows it doesn’t rain like this here at this time of year. No—he’s alone in his loft and Laura is dead.

He cracks an eye open reluctantly.

There’s an enormous black cloud floating above his bed and it keeps dumping ice cold water all over him. He gets tangled in his sheets trying to roll away from the torrent of rain above him, but even when he’s free the cloud persistently follows.

It soaks though everything on his bookcase—including the first edition copy of Watership Down he displays like a trophy in the middle of the top shelf. Derek scrambles to his feet, darts away from his book collection because maybe, just _maybe_ some of them will be okay if he dries them out the way his Mom taught him to when he dropped Peter’s copy of Moby Dick into a puddle when he was nine.

At least there’s nothing valuable in the bathroom. His hands are shaking because he’s so cold, shaking so hard he fumbles when he grasps at the handle, but after a few attempts he gets the door open. It’s a little desperate, but he tries to close the door behind him as if that will keep the cloud out. Sadly, a thin wooden door isn’t much defence against vapor. It passes straight through.

It’s shitty timing. Derek has no pack, no one to call, no one to check up on him. So Derek does the only thing he can think of.

He sits in the bathtub and lets the rain wash over him.

\--- 

After a couple of days he gets used to it. He accepts the fact that he will always be wet, always be cold, and always have to sleep in the bathtub at night.

Derek eats soggy sandwiches with soggy fillings. He doesn’t answer his phone, though he keeps on hearing it buzz, because that thing was expensive, he doesn’t know if it’s waterproof, and Stiles was the one who helped him choose it last year when his Samsung finally gave up. It’s important. He doesn’t want to break it.

But aside from small inconveniences like that, Derek adjusts. He learns to get by.

The only real complaint he has is that there isn’t much to do when there’s a rain-cloud hanging over you. He can’t read books, because they break within a matter of minutes under the cloud, as he learned when he sacrificed his edition of Little Women to the cause. He can’t watch TV, because the cloud rained on it and broke all the circuits or something. Derek doesn’t really get how electricity works, but if the smoke coming out of it is anything to go by then it’s probably out of action for a good while. He isn’t stupid enough to touch it. 

He runs out of groceries after a week.

It was a problem he didn’t think would be a problem, but now it’s lunchtime, and he’s hungry and there’s literally nothing left in the loft, which happened to him exactly once before, after a pack meeting that turned into a slumber party. Back then things were simpler, and Derek could just go to the grocery store to pick up more food. It’s not as if he can take his localized rainy day out in public with him now, though. The cloud is hardly inconspicuous.

Derek settles for going out into the forest at night, gathering berries and living on those as best he can. He hopes this doesn’t last much longer. He misses chicken wings already. This vegan lifestyle doesn’t suit him well.

\---

A fortnight passes before someone knocks on his door. He guesses it’ll be whoever lives downstairs from him. There’s no way none of the water has leaked through the floor.

Derek shrugs into a pair of sodden sweats. He gave up on wearing clothes a few days ago, because then they hang wet against his skin they only make him colder, but it’s not like he’s about to open the door in his Birthday suit. The material is a little uncomfortable against his skin, but he grits his teeth and deals with it.

“What?” he says, opening the door.

It isn’t his neighbors at all. Instead, the Sheriff is standing on the other side of the door looking distinctly unimpressed. “You’re soaking,” he says.

“I know,” says Derek. “Did you need something?”

Their relationship is still a little strained, but Derek likes the Sheriff well enough. Even though he arrested Derek a couple of times before Stiles told him the truth about werewolves, he has provided Derek and his pack with a get-out-of-jail card on several occasions since.

He also invited Derek over for Thanksgiving dinner last year, just so Derek didn’t have to spend the day alone. That was pretty nice.

“Stiles asked me to check up on you,” the Sheriff says. “Says he hasn’t heard from you since he left, and he’s getting a little—well. You know how he gets.”

Derek nods because yes, he definitely does know how Stiles gets: worried, all the time. He should have thought of that sooner. Now Stiles is at college freaking out about Derek when he should be out there having fun. If he weren’t so selfish, he’d have found a way to let Stiles know he’s okay.

Because he is totally okay. He’s just been a little preoccupied with the enormous rain-cloud floating above his head.

“I meant to text him,” he says apologetically, because he wouldn’t have ignored a text from Stiles. He doesn’t have the willpower to. “My phone isn’t working right now, though. Please apologize to him on my behalf and tell him that I’m fine.”

He knows his voice sounds stiff and unconvincing, but it’s been days since he last spoke to someone else and all he can think of right now is the cold.

“I don’t want to have to lie to my son,” the Sheriff says. “Listen, Derek, would you mind if I came inside?”

Derek knows he’ll see the cloud as soon as he steps through the door. See all the puddles it's left in its wake. See Derek’s soiled furniture, see his lack of real food, and see the complete hopelessness of this situation.

He quickly shakes his head. “I was just in the middle of fixing my shower,” he lies. “It’s leaking pretty badly, so now really isn’t a good time.”

“Well, that would explain the dripping,” the Sheriff says, and for a moment Derek thinks he’s gotten away with it. He really should have known better. Stiles is his father’s son, through and through, and he had to get his nosiness from somewhere.

The Sheriff shoulders past Derek in the doorway and ends up absolutely soaked. He splutters, looks up for the source of the downpour, and gets a face full of water in return.

“Sorry about that,” Derek says, embarrassed, because even if the Sheriff did push his way into the loft uninvited, Derek didn’t mean to get him drenched. He takes a few measured steps back so the cloud is no longer over the Sheriff’s head. “There are dry towels in the closet upstairs,” he says. “I don’t have dry clothes right now, but it’s hot out so a towel or two should be enough.”

“There’s a cloud above your head,” the Sheriff says, nonplussed. “An actual—”

“I know,” says Derek, ushering him upstairs as best he can without soaking him even more. “Believe me, Sheriff, I know.”

\---

After some tough bargaining, the Sheriff agrees not to tell Stiles about the whole cloud situation, but only because he wants Stiles to have a positive and relatively stress-free college experience. They both do.

“I’m not happy about this, though,” the Sheriff says. “And if you don’t get it sorted before he comes home, then I’m not going to cover for you.”

Derek nods once. “Fine.”

Once that’s settled, the Sheriff buys Derek some groceries, an umbrella, and a set of books with laminated spines. It helps, a little. The umbrella holds off enough of the rain for Derek to read a book without the pages sticking together or tearing if he needs to turn them, and that’s good enough for him.

\--- 

It doesn’t get better. Instead it gets worse.

The worse it gets, the more Derek misses his pack. He hasn’t seen them and, because his phone is out of action, he hasn’t heard from them either. Once, when the Sheriff had dropped off more food supplies, he’d offered to read Derek’s texts out to him. It should have helped, but it didn’t.

John barely got through one sentence of Isaac’s “Hey, Derek, I haven’t heard from you since I left, and…” text before Derek had to ask him to stop.

Derek misses them all.

A month passes, and the worried look the Sheriff wears whenever they see one another now grows more pronounced each time Derek opens the door for him.

“I’m going to call Deaton,” he eventually says, then proceeds to ignore all Derek’s protests. “Stiles is worried sick because you aren’t talking to him, and I’m sure he told me once that your kind goes to Deaton when you’re in trouble with any sort of supernatural... thing.”

Deaton comes over later that day, tuts that Derek should have called him sooner, and then does absolutely nothing helpful other than provide Derek with a red raincoat. It’s a size too small and it doesn’t match his black umbrella, but it will have to do.

\---

Peter lets himself into the loft two weeks before Stiles is due to come home. He’s been out of town for months. His presence doesn’t do anything to ease the aching Derek feels for his pack, maybe because Peter isn’t part of their pack at all.

When he sees Derek, he laughs and laughs.

“Do you know what’s wrong with me?” Derek demands, slamming him up against the wall. He doesn’t even feel bad when Peter’s clothes soak through.

When Peter pushes Derek away indignantly, his eyes flash Alpha red. That’s new, and it explains why Peter doesn’t feel like pack any more. “I’m sorry,” Peter says, and his voice is gentler than Derek remembers it being. It’s always been soft, yes, but never gentle. “I only came back to say goodbye.”

He hugs Derek briefly. It’s uncomfortable and wet.

“I’m going to pretend you never did that,” Derek says.

Peter laughs, but it sounds a little sad. “You always were my favorite nephew,” he says, cupping Derek’s wet cheek with his wet hand. “I have a new pack now, and a fresh start with them, but they’re not—they’re not family. You’ll always be my family, Derek. Maybe one day we’ll see each other again.”

Then he’s gone, and the cloud wraps itself around Derek once more.

He barely even noticed that the rain eased with Peter there. Even when he’s gone and Derek is left to contemplate life alone again, all Derek wonders about their brief encounter is whether or not his uncle had answers to his questions after all.

\---

Derek hasn’t sorted out the problem before Stiles comes home. He doesn’t know how to sort out the problem before Stiles comes home. He’s given up on sorting out the problem before Stiles comes home.

“Stiles’s flight lands early tomorrow morning,” the Sheriff warns, watching Derek with a fond look in his eyes as Derek prepares yet another soggy sandwich with two slices of soggy bread. “You’re going to be the first person he wants to see.”

“I know,” Derek sighs. “When he sees me like this he isn’t—”

“He cares about you,” the Sheriff says, cutting Derek off mid-sentence.

Somehow, those four words feel like enough.

\--- 

He wakes up sodden as ever the next morning, to someone banging loudly on his door. “Open up, Derek,” Stiles yells. “I swear to God, get down here and open the damn door. And you had better have a _damn_ good explanation for the fucking radio silence I’ve been getting since I went to—”

Derek’s back is stiff from sleeping in the bathtub, and right now he doesn’t own a single pair of dry socks, but for the first time since the cloud appeared he doesn’t mind the sound of his cracking vertebrae, or the feeling of wet clothes against his skin. Stiles is here— _here_.

He opens the door and Stiles stumbles through it and straight into Derek’s arms. His soaking wet arms. But Stiles doesn’t seem to mind that as he presses himself into Derek’s chest. He’s warm, so warm, the first warm thing Derek has felt since he left, and he’s clutching Derek just as hard as Derek is clutching him.

Derek breathes him in, smiles because he still smells like soap, sweat, red apples and cinnamon.

“You’re an idiot,” Stiles says, his arms tightening around Derek for a moment before he pushes him away enough to scrutinize him, like a parent in search of a bump or scrape to explain why their kid is crying. His eyes narrow as he takes in his wet hair and wet clothes. “Did you shower fully dressed?”

“I—” Derek looks up, looks for the cloud, but it isn’t there. “I slept in the bath last night,” he says, because that’s the only thing that comes to mind that’s not a lie. 

Stiles rolls his eyes, wrapping Derek’s cold hands up in his own.

“Okay,” he says. “Well I’m going to have to change my diagnosis. You’re no longer an idiot. You’re straight up insane. Have you been spending prolonged periods of time with Peter? Because I’m pretty sure you were more normal when I left you. Like, seriously, you were weird and everything, but this is on a different level. I thought it was bad enough when Scott tried to make toast in the microwave last week, but here you were sleeping in the bathtub. To think, my dad even tried to tell me that you were fine.” Stiles rolls his eyes and sighs dramatically. “God. I can’t leave you alone for a minute, can I?”

Derek swallows thickly. “Probably not. I missed you.”

“I know you did,” Stiles tells him, squeezing his cold hands. “And I love you.”

\---

In January, when Stiles goes back to college, the cloud doesn’t come back.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading. any/all feedback is always appreciated. hit me up on [tumblr](http://ghoulinski.tumblr.com/) if you wanna talk teen wolf!


End file.
